Pivoting in Colombia
I had a great coffee the other day at one of the many Juan Valdez locations here in Bogotá with an entrepreneur named Daniel Dominguez. His company is called i-Azul, which was focusing on QR codes in general, and is pivoting by offering a more complete ticketing solution with Tickqr. It goes a bit further than ticketing solutions such as Eventbrite in that, among other things, it makes better use of mobile devices (sms or smartphones).
Daniel, who has a Masters in Robotics, is still in the process of pivoting his company. Although, there’s still quite a ways to go, he’s shown persistence and tenacity in becoming a start-up entrepreneur as he’s been at this for a couple of years. He’s got a great quality that I think will help him tremendously, which his interest in learning and getting guidance from the right places. He’s been to Silicon Valley to get a feel for the start-up environment there and will be applying to the Founder Institute here in Bogotá.
There is definitely an entrepreneurial culture in Colombia, but what I feel has been lacking is the development of high impact businesses. In other industries, there are some great examples such as BodyTech, Andres Carne de Res and others. Nevertheless, I believe that this country really needs to connect with the rest of the world and expand its start-up and investor networks to include Silicon Valley and other places and that’s one of the things that I hope that the Founder Institute will help with. Apply here.